QUICK! SOMEONE RECOMMEND ME A GOOD SOUNDCARD!
- Thread starter alee25
- Start date
There are tons of good sound cards.
What do you want it for?
My personal favourites are the AOpen AW744Pro for about $20-25, or the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for about $70. Another good choice is the Hercules GTXP if you want a million connectors $150.
What do you want it for?
My personal favourites are the AOpen AW744Pro for about $20-25, or the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for about $70. Another good choice is the Hercules GTXP if you want a million connectors $150.
Using for games and music mainly (but not DVD movies). I have Cambridge 2500 Speakers. Must be under 100. Any more reccommendations?
Thx
Thx
The Cruz should go well with those speakers.
You can use the Front/Rear jacks to hook up for gaming and music.
You could then use the versa jack in digital mode if you wanted to watch a movie (but you said you don't) or set it to headphone mode if you ever needed headphones.
You can use the Front/Rear jacks to hook up for gaming and music.
You could then use the versa jack in digital mode if you wanted to watch a movie (but you said you don't) or set it to headphone mode if you ever needed headphones.
You sure can tell the AMD guys.Whats wrong with SB-Live great card untill you had to use pi$$ poor MB,s because AMD can't make or didn't make a good chip set to support some of the best products.Yes the other cards are fine but it is a bitch when you haft to buy a sound card when you already have one,but when you get the new AMD CPU and MB all of a sudden the SB-Live don't work with all programs.So where have you saved any money when you haft to buy other stuff to get the cheap ass crap to work.I love it when I hear that the Online site say yell it will work,then when they get the order it is a total cluster f%^k.Then you waste my time wanting help to get it to work.I suggest a box of asprinin with each purchase 
.
.What about the Sound Blaster Live 5.1?
You can get find through Price watch for about $50 OEM and Compusa has the retail version SB Live 5.1+MP3 (same card with software bundle) for $70. Go to compusa B&M or their website.
I just got it through Staples on a PM at compusa + coupon for a total of $60 (I even got them to give the X-gamer version instead of the MP3 version).
Is the SB 5.1 no good?
You can get find through Price watch for about $50 OEM and Compusa has the retail version SB Live 5.1+MP3 (same card with software bundle) for $70. Go to compusa B&M or their website.
I just got it through Staples on a PM at compusa + coupon for a total of $60 (I even got them to give the X-gamer version instead of the MP3 version).
Is the SB 5.1 no good?
The problem with the SBLive (X) is that it has documented issues hogging PCI bus cycles/bandwidth, wants to use a dozen different IRQ's, has no MP3 hardware acceleration, and costs more $$$$. You can get the above mentioned Hercules GTXP for $50 less than a SBL Platinum and it's far less taxing on your system. Not to mention that it is essentially an 8 channed sound card (using dual 4-channel DSP's (CS4630)) and supports EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0, A3D 1.0 and I3DL2. Can the SBLive make those same claims? And YES, the SBLive does have issues with certain MoBo's & software, so why not get something compatible? The Santa Cruz uses the same chip (only a single one) as the GTXP also, and is a great card for the money.
Sharkmeat:
FYI: AMD has nothing to do with the SBLive! problems. It's a Via south bridge 686B problem. Motherboard manufacturers chose to use this chip even with the AMD761 chip despite AMD having their own south bridge. It's a Via problem not an AMD problem.
Not that it's really relevant.
But anyhow FWIW (admittedly not much) my SBLive! worked fine with my motherboard, and it has the 686B chip. But the fact of the matter is, the SBLive! was a top of the line sound card 3 years ago when it debuted. Cards from Turtle Beach, Hercules and Philips are superior to the SBLive! line, just on merit. Problems aside.
The SBLive2 is coming out soon, and we'll see how that works, but right now there are cards with more features than the SBLive!. And you said it yourself, they are also more compatible.
And not much more expensive, and frequently cheaper.
FYI: AMD has nothing to do with the SBLive! problems. It's a Via south bridge 686B problem. Motherboard manufacturers chose to use this chip even with the AMD761 chip despite AMD having their own south bridge. It's a Via problem not an AMD problem.
Not that it's really relevant.
But anyhow FWIW (admittedly not much) my SBLive! worked fine with my motherboard, and it has the 686B chip. But the fact of the matter is, the SBLive! was a top of the line sound card 3 years ago when it debuted. Cards from Turtle Beach, Hercules and Philips are superior to the SBLive! line, just on merit. Problems aside.
The SBLive2 is coming out soon, and we'll see how that works, but right now there are cards with more features than the SBLive!. And you said it yourself, they are also more compatible.
And not much more expensive, and frequently cheaper.
Mem
Lifer
- Apr 23, 2000
- 21,476
- 13
- 81
<< You sure can tell the AMD guys.Whats wrong with SB-Live great card untill you had to use pi$$ poor MB,s because AMD can't make or didn't make a good chip set to support some of the best products >>
First I use a SBLive with a AMD/Via board and it has been perfect for stability etc,however Creative labs are taking there time with drivers and have not really improved their range over the last few years and cards like the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz now sound better and offer very good value for money.
My 2nd PC I`m currently building will have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard mainly because of the above comments.
Noriaki
Didn't I say MB,s!!!!! which means Chipsets.I didn't say squat about AMD other than there poor history of support of chip sets for there own CPU.Intel always got the chipsets ready alone with the CPU.example BX chipset best one in computer history,If it wasen't for intell chipsets AMD would be lost now.
Didn't I say MB,s!!!!! which means Chipsets.I didn't say squat about AMD other than there poor history of support of chip sets for there own CPU.Intel always got the chipsets ready alone with the CPU.example BX chipset best one in computer history,If it wasen't for intell chipsets AMD would be lost now.
Yes the i440BX is one of the best chipsets ever.
And Intel in general (with the expection of the i820) makes excellent chipsets.
I'm not sure I understand the rest of your post though....
The SBLive! problems are with Via's chipset not AMD's.
The AMD 761/766 (760) is a prefectly fine platform for Athlons, but no one uses it. True AMD doesn't want to produce it in large quantities, but no one has uses the 766 at all.
Via makes piss poor chipsets, true. AMD should push the AMD760 harder, also likely true. But still even current AMD760 boards, the MFRs won't use AMD's south bridge, so they get problems.
It's not AMD's fault.
As for AMD being dead without Intel chipsets...it's been years since Intel chipsets supported AMD CPUs...the 430TX was the latest one (or was it the HX or VX...I can't remember which was the newest of that bunch).
And Intel in general (with the expection of the i820) makes excellent chipsets.
I'm not sure I understand the rest of your post though....
The SBLive! problems are with Via's chipset not AMD's.
The AMD 761/766 (760) is a prefectly fine platform for Athlons, but no one uses it. True AMD doesn't want to produce it in large quantities, but no one has uses the 766 at all.
Via makes piss poor chipsets, true. AMD should push the AMD760 harder, also likely true. But still even current AMD760 boards, the MFRs won't use AMD's south bridge, so they get problems.
It's not AMD's fault.
As for AMD being dead without Intel chipsets...it's been years since Intel chipsets supported AMD CPUs...the 430TX was the latest one (or was it the HX or VX...I can't remember which was the newest of that bunch).
I am prolly wrong, but last benchmark I saw the SBLive used less CPU time than other competing sound card.
That was a while ago and not sure who did it.
That was a while ago and not sure who did it.
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